PvP Combat Rules
PvP Combat Okay, so given the nature of this story, battles will be inevitable. This page will explain the general rules on how to handle story combat. And, for your benefit, here's a page on Plot Armor for you to understand how that works for this game. The Main Rule When your character is fighting someone, you cannot kill or severely damage them without giving them a chance to respond to what you wrote. Let's take a look at some examples of illegal writing. In this case, Jesse's and Alfred's characters have some serious beef with each other and are about to fight. The following is an example of a fight scene between the characters Pilles and Marcus Jesse's writing turn: ... There would be a long downtime, but it was necessary to bypass Marcus's malice detection. With perfect spacing between them, Pilles froze the time flow in the distance between him and Marcus, just managing to catch the latter within the freeze while avoiding detection. Pilles took his time walking over to the time-frozen Marcus; the negative side-effect of his ability would actually be beneficial here. He took out the handcuffs that he had stolen from the policeman and bound Marcus's hands behind his back. With precision, he taped Marcus's eyelids open. Finally, he drew his signature weapon, the Dagger of the Homeless, and stabbed it straight into Marcus's chest. Marcus's healing ability would be useless with the blade embedded in his heart. Before allowing the flow of time to continue, Pilles placed himself face-to-face with Marcus, bulged out his eyes, and made the largest, creepiest grin he could. The next thing Marcus knew was that his hands were cuffed behind him, a blade was protruding from his chest, and he was unable to close his eyes to the sight before him: Pilles Bahnus, frozen in time, making the creepiest expression he had ever seen in his life. "Worth...less.." Marcus gasped, realizing that the last thing he would see was Pilles's intentionally contorted face. By the time Pilles was unfrozen, Marcus was already dead. ... See how in this example, Jesse wrote in that Alfred's character died? ' '''That's the illegal part. ' '''Let's take a look at another example. For this one, let's say that Jesse didn't write the above yet, and Alfred is writing first for the fight: Alfred's writing turn: ... It was obvious. Pilles's murderous intent towards Marcus was telegraphed well before the former could freeze the time around them; Marcus knew what direction he was coming from and extended the range of his Malicesight well beyond what Pilles anticipated. And yet, with Pilles's ability it would be difficult to ever land a clean blow on him due to Marcus's lack of ranged attacks. He knew he only had seconds before Pilles would strike. A surge of adrenaline coursed his body. Marcus's mind raced, judging and analyzing the type of malice Pilles was exhibiting. Targets, focus, what are they? Where is he aiming? And that's when he felt it: the targets were his eyes, hands, and heart. Marcus quickly deduced from these focus points that Pilles intended to limit the range of his ki manipulation by binding his hands, and kill him by stabbing his heart. But the eyes... Marcus didn't feel an intent to blind him. Rather, it seemed that Pilles wanted him to watch something. One second left. To effectively hunt prey, one must be a master of the bait. Marcus quickly conjured the strongest repulsing ki barrier he could over his chest, hidden from plain sight beneath his clothes. Time was up. The scene before him instantly changed. Pilles suddenly appeared on the ground, yards away, frozen with an expression of shock etched onto his face. Marcus was handcuffed. He tried to blink, but it felt as though his eyelids were taped open. It seemed that Pilles had frozen time and executed every step of his plan save for the final one; the fatal strike had been repulsed by the ki barrier, flinging him to the ground, breaking his concentration, and forcing his ability to end. He was frozen in time as a consequence of his power. Perfect, Marcus thought to himself as he walked over to Pilles's body. It was no trouble at all for the army veteran to nimbly handle a ki blade even with his hands cuffed behind his back. And it was only fitting that Pilles die the death that he had intended for Marcus: a stab straight into the heart. Pilles never unfroze from his ability's consequence. He was dead in a pool of his own blood, sprays of red life fluid still sputtering from his pierced chest. Marcus calmly walked away. His army training had hardened him to the sight of death. All he cared about now was what to have for dinner. ... Okay, so the above writing samples both broke the key rule: in each example, the writer killed off the opposing character. But that doesn't mean that everything written was illegal. What if Jesse's writing turn didn't have that last line that specifically stated that Marcus died? What if, instead of Pilles stabbing Marcus in the chest, the chapter just ended with the attack in motion? In that case, these two writing examples can be added together into one story. If Jesse's writing turn ended with the attack in motion, notice how we can immediately add Alfred's part to it and make it into one fluid fight scene. And if we remove the illegal part in the Alfred example specifically stating that Pilles died, Jesse would get a chance to respond. It would be an epic back and forth. Therefore, when your character is in combat you can have him or her do whatever technique you want. But when the lethal move is thrown, you must end it with the attack not yet reaching the opponent. It'll be up to the other writer's creativity to get their character out of whatever situation you placed them in. Now that we've got the main rule covered, here are some sections on how it applies based on what characters are fighting. Player vs. Player When it's your character vs. another player's character. Keep in mind that this also applies to other characters made by players. In this situation, the main rule must be followed. Additionally, writers have the option of activating "Battle Time" (see Battle Time section below). Player vs. Boss "Boss" characters refer to main story antagonists. In our current story arc, each main MERLIN member introduced will be a "Boss" character. When your character is fighting one of these characters, you must follow the main rule but ''your opponent doesn't have to. ''If certain conditions are met, or a huge lack of creativity in the battle is displayed by the player, the Boss character can kill off its opponent. Battle Time When two or more characters are in combat, both writers controlling those characters have the option of temporarily freezing the current turn order until the battle somehow ends. This is a Battle Time. During this time, both writers, at the end of their battling chapter, can end it with a "..." Think of this as like a taunt. The other writer being fought against is forced to take their next writing turn (ignoring the current turn order) So it's like a back and forth between two writers until the battle ends somehow. Everyone else is just spectating There are three ways for it to end: 1. One of the player characters dies. If the writer controlling that character decides "You know what, you got me," they can write in their character's death and final actions. After their character dies, writing turn order resumes. (I'm thinking with this kind of group, that probably won't happen given how stubborn all of you are. So...) A player's character can also die if the other writers (who become merely readers while the battle is going on) put it to a majority vote if they think that character should have died from a creative and well-written series of events. This vote is only put into place after the other writer had a chance to respond and if that response was not satisfactory. 2. One of the players manages to flee, or manages to reach a compromise. In the case of fleeing, if the other player decides not to pursue, or if the first character fled in a way that made them too difficult or impossible to follow, then during their next writing turn the battle is concluded. 3. Any player doesn't end their writing with "..." signifying that the next turn will proceed as normal. And there you have it, the first draft of the combat rules! Happy writing! Category:Tutorials